Love poems
/ page 1245 of 1285 /Mary - A Ballad
© Robert Southey
Author Note: The story of the following ballad was related to me, when a school boy, as a fact which had really happened in the North of England. I have
adopted the metre of Mr. Lewis's Alonzo and Imogene--a poem deservedly
popular.
Inscription 08 - For The Cenotaph At Ermenonville
© Robert Southey
STRANGER! the MAN OF NATURE lies not here:
Enshrin'd far distant by his rival's side
His relics rest, there by the giddy throng
With blind idolatry alike revered!
Inscription 07 - For A Tablet On The Banks Of A Stream
© Robert Southey
Stranger! awhile upon this mossy bank
Recline thee. If the Sun rides high, the breeze,
That loves to ripple o'er the rivulet,
Will play around thy brow, and the cool sound
Inscription 03 - For A Cavern That Overlooks The River Avon
© Robert Southey
Enter this cavern Stranger! the ascent
Is long and steep and toilsome; here awhile
Thou mayest repose thee, from the noontide heat
O'ercanopied by this arch'd rock that strikes
Inscription 01 - For A Tablet At Godstow Nunnery
© Robert Southey
Here Stranger rest thee! from the neighbouring towers
Of Oxford, haply thou hast forced thy bark
Up this strong stream, whose broken waters here
Send pleasant murmurs to the listening sense:
Hymn To The Penates
© Robert Southey
Yet one Song more! one high and solemn strain
Ere PAEAN! on thy temple's ruined wall
I hang the silent harp: there may its strings,
When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,
His Books
© Robert Southey
MY days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
Go, Valentine
© Robert Southey
Go, Valentine, and tell that lovely maid
Whom fancy still will portray to my sight,
How here I linger in this sullen shade,
This dreary gloom of dull monastic night;
Donica - A Ballad
© Robert Southey
Author Note: In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein
very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which
foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer
belonging to the place; and most commonly it appeareth in the shape of
an harper, sweetly singing and dallying and playing under the water.
Botany Bay Eclogues 05 - Frederic
© Robert Southey
(Time Night. Scene the woods.)
Where shall I turn me? whither shall I bend
My weary way? thus worn with toil and faint
How thro' the thorny mazes of this wood
Botany Bay Eclogues 03 - Humphrey And William
© Robert Southey
See'st thou not William that the scorching Sun
By this time half his daily race has run?
The savage thrusts his light canoe to shore
And hurries homeward with his fishy store.
Suppose we leave awhile this stubborn soil
To eat our dinner and to rest from toil!
Botany Bay Eclogues 02 - Elinor
© Robert Southey
(Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore.)Once more to daily toil--once more to wear
The weeds of infamy--from every joy
The heart can feel excluded, I arise
Worn out and faint with unremitting woe;
Birth-Day Ode 03
© Robert Southey
If FAME allure thee, climb not thou
To that steep mountain's craggy brow
Where stands her stately pile;
For far from thence does PEACE abide,
And thou shall find FAME'S favouring smile
Cold as the feeble Sun on Heclas snow-clad side,
Ariste
© Robert Southey
Low to the finished form the nations round
In adoration bent the pious knee;
With myrtle wreaths the artist's brow they crowned,
Whose skill, Ariste, only imaged thee.
Ill-fated artist, doomed so wide to seek
The charms that blossom on Ariste's cheek!
Cairo Jag
© Keith Douglas
Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake,
a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances
apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne
How To Kill
© Keith Douglas
Under the parabola of a ball,
a child turning into a man,
I looked into the air too long.
The ball fell in my hand, it sang
in the closed fist: Open Open
Behold a gift designed to kill.
Vergissmeinnicht
© Keith Douglas
Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.
Epitaph for Maria Wentworth
© Thomas Carew
And here the precious dust is laid;
Whose purely-temper'd clay was made
So fine that it the guest betray'd.
Song. Good Counsel to a Young Maid
© Thomas Carew
GAZE not on thy beauty's pride,
Tender maid, in the false tide
That from lovers' eyes doth slide.
Let thy faithful crystal show
How thy colours come and go :
Beauty takes a foil from woe.
To A. L. Persuasions to Love.
© Thomas Carew
THINK not, 'cause men flattering say
You're fresh as April, sweet as May,
Bright as is the morning star,
That you are so ; or, though you are,